Haibo Liu , Yunpeng Zhao , Chao Ma , Guangchen Jia , Zhan Zhang , Dong An
{"title":"Discrete element method for non-spherical feed particle transport in offshore truss cage aquaculture: Modeling and applications","authors":"Haibo Liu , Yunpeng Zhao , Chao Ma , Guangchen Jia , Zhan Zhang , Dong An","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102644","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102644","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Optimizing feed utilization is a critical challenge in offshore aquaculture, where low efficiency and high costs persist due to difficulties in predicting feed dispersal. This study addresses this issue by employing a Computational Fluid Dynamics–Discrete Element Method (CFD-DEM) framework, featuring a non-spherical drag model, to analyze the transport and dispersion of feed pellets in a truss net cage. One-way coupling was utilized to simulate the trajectories of dilute concentrations of both short cylindrical (<em>H/D</em> = 0.2, 0.4, 0.6) and slender cylindrical (<em>H/D</em> = 2.24, 2.47, 2.83) pellets. The results reveal that under cross-flow conditions, the particle Stokes number (<em>S</em><sub><em>t</em></sub><em>)</em> is significantly less than unity (<em>S</em><sub><em>t</em></sub>≪1), indicating that trajectories are primarily governed by the local flow field. The pellet aspect ratio was identified as a key determinant of rotational dynamics, slender pellets exhibited more vigorous rotation, which enhanced their spatial dispersion. Particle shape significantly influenced residence time. While slender pellets settled faster in still water, short cylindrical pellets had shorter residence times in the presence of a current. By accurately modeling small-scale particle dynamics within a large-scale environment, this research provides valuable insights for optimizing feed pellet geometry to enhance aquaculture efficiency.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102644"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145263200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lukas Folkman , Quynh LK Vo , Colin Johnston , Bela Stantic , Kylie A. Pitt
{"title":"A computer vision method to estimate ventilation rate of Atlantic salmon in sea fish farms","authors":"Lukas Folkman , Quynh LK Vo , Colin Johnston , Bela Stantic , Kylie A. Pitt","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102645","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102645","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The increasing demand for aquaculture production necessitates the development of innovative, intelligent tools to effectively monitor and manage fish health and welfare. While non-invasive video monitoring has become a common practice in finfish aquaculture, existing intelligent monitoring methods predominantly focus on assessing body condition or fish swimming patterns and are often developed and evaluated in controlled tank environments, without demonstrating their applicability to real-world aquaculture settings in open sea farms. This underscores the necessity for methods that can monitor physiological traits directly within the production environment of sea fish farms. To this end, we have developed a computer vision method for monitoring ventilation rates of Atlantic salmon (<em>Salmo salar</em>), which was specifically designed for videos recorded in the production environment of commercial sea fish farms using the existing infrastructure. Our approach uses a fish head detection model, which classifies the mouth state as either open or closed using a convolutional neural network. This is followed with multiple object tracking to create temporal sequences of fish swimming across the field of view of the underwater video camera to estimate ventilation rates. The method demonstrated high efficiency, achieving a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.82 between ground truth and predicted ventilation rates in a test set of 100 fish collected independently of the training data. Our method was designed to analyse large quantities of fish efficiently to provide population-level estimates of ventilation rates, rather than longitudinal observations for individual fish. By accurately identifying pens where fish exhibit signs of respiratory distress, the method offers broad applicability and the potential to transform fish health and welfare monitoring in finfish aquaculture.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102645"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145263218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chinedu James Chiama , Maria Teresa Gutierrez-Wing , Chimezie John Chiama , Mike Benton , Ronald F. Malone
{"title":"Denitrification performance of polyhydroxybutyrate/cellulose (PHBC) blend with and without a nitrogen-driven degassing column","authors":"Chinedu James Chiama , Maria Teresa Gutierrez-Wing , Chimezie John Chiama , Mike Benton , Ronald F. Malone","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102643","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102643","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The solid-phase denitrification (SPD) process can be severely inhibited by the presence of dissolved oxygen (DO). Efficient oxygen management, therefore, remains a critical challenge in designing simple and cost-effective SPD biofilters. This study evaluated the impact of DO on the denitrification performance of a polyhydroxybutyrate/cellulose (PHBC60:40) blend in flow-through biofilters. Two up-flow biofilters were designed: Group A, equipped with a nitrogen-driven degasser maintaining influent DO below 0.5 mg L<sup>−1</sup>, and Group B, operated without a degasser under influent DO levels of 3–6 mg L<sup>−1</sup>, at a flux of 2.5 m<sup>3</sup> m<sup>−2</sup> d<sup>−1</sup> (HRT = 28 min). Group A achieved a maximum denitrification rate of 6.1 ± 0.1 kg NO₃⁻-N m<sup>-</sup>³ d<sup>−1</sup>, significantly higher than Group B’s 5.6 ± 0.2 kg NO₃⁻-N m<sup>-</sup>³ d<sup>−1</sup>, approximately a 9 % increase. Once stabilized after day 3, net effluent COD levels were 104 ± 24 mg L<sup>−1</sup> for Group A and 86.4 ± 30 mg L<sup>−1</sup> for Group B, with no statistically significant difference. Similarly, BOD₅ values were 101 ± 37 mg L<sup>−1</sup> and 86 ± 31 mg L<sup>−1</sup> for Groups A and B, respectively, with no observable significant difference. PHBC60:40 consumption rates were also comparable: 4.1 ± 0.4 kg PHBC (kg NO₃⁻-N)<sup>−1</sup> for Group A and 4.2 ± 0.7 kg PHBC (kg NO₃⁻-N)<sup>−1</sup> for Group B. Despite the improved nitrate removal in Group A, all other parameters were comparable between the systems. Moreover, as oxygen depletion in Group B occurred within just 5–10 % of the media bed, the added cost and complexity of a nitrogen-driven degasser are not justified. These findings indicate that the PHBC blend-packed biofilters can perform effectively without oxygen-stripping pretreatment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102643"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145263165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Naveen Nivas S , Dinesh Kaippilly , Geeji MT , Jowin T James , Subi S , Ayyaru Gopalakrishnan , Anisha Shafni John , Keerthika Ganesan , Arundathy A
{"title":"Habitat-enhanced recirculating aquaculture systems improve post-transport recovery and survival of Scylla serrata (Forsskål, 1775)","authors":"Naveen Nivas S , Dinesh Kaippilly , Geeji MT , Jowin T James , Subi S , Ayyaru Gopalakrishnan , Anisha Shafni John , Keerthika Ganesan , Arundathy A","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102642","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102642","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mud crab aquaculture is expanding rapidly, but its potential is constrained by high mortality rates linked to post-transport stress and suboptimal rearing systems. The industry’s reliance on prolonged transport and clear-water recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) is fundamentally misaligned with the physiology of <em>Scylla serrata</em>, the Indo-Pacific’s most widely farmed crab species. This study evaluated a habitat-enhanced RAS designed to mimic estuarine conditions through the use of mud substrate, turbid water and shelters to address these challenges. Crabs subjected to transport durations of 0 h, 24 h and 48 h were reared in either conventional clear-water or naturalised RAS. Extended transport significantly increased <em>Vibrio</em> spp. loads in haemolymph and tissues, induced gill damage and suppressed immune function. In contrast, naturalised RAS substantially improved outcomes, achieving 80 % survival even after 48 h of transport. These systems also enhanced key health indicators, including immune parameters (total haemocyte count, phenoloxidase) and antioxidant capacity (superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase), while simultaneously increasing moulting frequency and growth rates compared with clear-water controls. Kaplan-Meier analysis further confirmed a significantly lower mortality risk in naturalised systems. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that adopting naturalised, species-specific RAS designs is a viable and critical strategy for mitigating transport stress, improving animal welfare and ensuring the long-term sustainability of mud crab aquaculture.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102642"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145217599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Milan Říha , Rubén Rabaneda-Bueno , Marie Prchalová , Lenka Kajgrová , Travis B. Meador , Martin Bláha , Vladislav Draštík , Luboš Kočvara , Irina Kuklina , Lukáš Veselý
{"title":"Integrating high-resolution telemetry and stable isotope analysis to link behavior, diet, and growth in pond-reared carp","authors":"Milan Říha , Rubén Rabaneda-Bueno , Marie Prchalová , Lenka Kajgrová , Travis B. Meador , Martin Bláha , Vladislav Draštík , Luboš Kočvara , Irina Kuklina , Lukáš Veselý","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102641","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102641","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The common carp (<em>Cyprinus carpio</em>) is an important species in freshwater aquaculture and optimizing its production in pond systems requires a detailed understanding of behavior in response to environmental and management factors. In this study, we combined high-resolution acoustic telemetry, stable isotope analysis, and direct sampling of natural food availability to investigate carp activity, space use, diet composition, and growth over two growing seasons (2022–2023) in a semi-intensive aquaculture pond. Telemetry provided fine-scale spatiotemporal data on fish movement and habitat use, while isotope analysis revealed integrated dietary contributions of natural and supplementary food sources. Natural prey sampling enabled us to link observed behavior with resource dynamics. Carp activity peaked in spring and during twilight or nighttime, and shallow areas (<0.5 m) were used preferentially in summer. Feeding ground use declined over days following feeding events and varied markedly among individuals, influencing supplementary food intake and growth. In 2022, a flood brought in ∼13,900 small carp, increasing fish density, intensifying competition, reducing prey availability, and ultimately lowering growth compared to 2023. Our findings highlight the value of combining behavioral, dietary, and environmental monitoring in pond aquaculture systems. This approach enabled us to uncover mechanisms behind individual variation in performance and to formulate practical recommendations for management. These include aligning feeding schedules with diel activity, using multiple feeding sites to mitigate competition, and adjusting feed inputs based on natural food availability, all of which can enhance production efficiency and sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102641"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145217598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vinícius Fellype Cavalcanti de França, Luis Otavio Brito da Silva, Humber Agrelli de Andrade
{"title":"Impact of variable selection and model complexity on the prediction of water quality parameters for Penaeus vannamei aquaculture in a short dataset context","authors":"Vinícius Fellype Cavalcanti de França, Luis Otavio Brito da Silva, Humber Agrelli de Andrade","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102640","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102640","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Aquaculture is expanding rapidly worldwide, increasing the demand for efficient water quality management in shrimp farming. In this study, we evaluated the impact of variable selection and model complexity on the prediction of the mean of water parameters using machine learning. Two variable selection approaches were applied: a Granger causality test to capture temporal predictability, and a backward procedure based on the Akaike Information Criterion to balance model fit and complexity. An experimental dataset of 106 observations of temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity and pH was standardised and modelled using a linear regression and a random forest regressor. Model performance was assessed by cross-validation using mean squared error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) as metrics. Our results showed a significant superiority of linear regressor over the random forest, suggesting that simpler models may be more effective with limited datasets than more complex models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102640"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145217589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shantan Li , Xinting Yang , Zhitao Huang , Tingting Fu , Pingchuan Ma , Dejun Feng , Chao Zhou
{"title":"RC-UMT: Multimodal fish feeding intensity classification network with enhanced feature extraction capability in aquaculture","authors":"Shantan Li , Xinting Yang , Zhitao Huang , Tingting Fu , Pingchuan Ma , Dejun Feng , Chao Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102639","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102639","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Quantifying fish feeding intensity in real-time is crucial for devising scientific feeding strategies and improving production efficiency. Unimodal fish feeding intensity recognition tasks, such as audio or video, often fail to fully reflect the global characteristics, and lead to unreliable results. To address the limitations, a video and audio fusion model Reinforced Cross-modal Uni-Modal Teacher (RC-UMT) is introduced to evaluate fish feeding intensity classification, which can categorise feeding intensity into four different categories. The specific implementation is as follows: Firstly, the backbone in the original Uni-Modal Teacher (UMT) model is replaced with a Res2Net network, by weighting spatial coordinates of input feature maps, the Coordinate Attention (CA) mechanism in the Res2Net network enhances the ability to capture key multi-frequency features in audio signals. Secondly, RepViT, a lightweight convolutional network inspired by Vision Transformer principles, is introduced to the UMT, which can extract both global and local visual features simultaneously, thereby improving multi-level semantic representation. Finally, an affine transformation matrix with manifold preservation is introduced to enhance the fusion process of the original UMT, which preserves the manifold structure of original modal features, thereby achieving more efficient cross-modal fusion. Results from the experimentation indicate that the RC-UMT model achieves a classification accuracy of 93 %, outperforming the original UMT model by 7 % while reducing parameters by 25.41 %. Compared to audio-only and video-only modalities, the accuracy improves by 7 % and 6.5 %, respectively. Therefore, the proposed video-audio multimodal model enables real-time, high-precision feeding intensity classification, providing technical support for improving smart feeding equipment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102639"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145119287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mohamed Salman , Vladislav Sorokin , Andrew G. Jeffs , Sebastian McDonald , Michael MacDonald , Colin Whittaker , Bradley M. Skelton
{"title":"Feasibility of a passive tidal floating upweller system for the nursery culture of bivalve spat","authors":"Mohamed Salman , Vladislav Sorokin , Andrew G. Jeffs , Sebastian McDonald , Michael MacDonald , Colin Whittaker , Bradley M. Skelton","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102638","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102638","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>High losses of juvenile bivalves, such as oysters, clams, and mussels, during nursery culture reduce the overall efficiency of aquaculture production of many species. These losses can be mitigated through effective contained nursery culture systems, which provide sufficient flow of water containing suspended food particles to facilitate the growth of juveniles, usually in an upwelling arrangement. Raw seawater can be used to provision upwelling nursery systems with flowing water containing particulate food, but it requires substantial energy input to pump large volumes. This study sought to eliminate the energy inputs for nursery culture by conducting a feasibility study on a tidally driven floating upweller system (FLUPSY) using a comprehensive simulation and experimental study approach. A passive tidal FLUPSY was designed based on established designs, followed by comprehensive computational fluid dynamics simulations in flume and ocean fluid domains. The results from laboratory flow visualisation experiments showed good agreement with the simulations. Field experiments further validated the simulation results, and the observed flow velocities mirrored those obtained from simulations. However, the results of both the simulations and experiments revealed that despite an upward trend along the inclined intake ramp, the flow near the spat location in the passive tidal FLUPSY was relatively low. As such, an optimisation study was carried out to increase the FLUPSY's outlet velocity, which showed that a three times increase in inlet area resulted in 62 % of the incoming tidal flow being conveyed through the passive tidal FLUPSY. Nevertheless, the disproportion between the FLUPSY's inlet and outlet areas presents challenges to commercial viability. These results provide valuable insight into the feasibility of a passive tidal FLUPSY for bivalve aquaculture and underscore the need to further explore alternative active tidal FLUPSY designs to address these limitations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102638"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145107187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Waseem Akram, Muhayy Ud Din, Lyes Saad Saoud, Irfan Hussain
{"title":"A review of generative AI in aquaculture: Applications, case studies and challenges for smart and sustainable farming","authors":"Waseem Akram, Muhayy Ud Din, Lyes Saad Saoud, Irfan Hussain","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102637","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102637","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) is revolutionizing aquaculture by providing practical and scalable solutions to longstanding industry challenges, including limited data availability, labor-intensive underwater inspections, disease outbreaks, and inefficiencies in resource management. As the sector evolves toward the Aquaculture 4.0 vision of intelligent, interconnected, and sustainable systems, GAI offers transformative capabilities across perception, planning, optimization, and communication. GAI enhances automation, decision support, and situational awareness across the aquaculture value chain through the intelligent synthesis of multimodal data ranging from sensor logs and underwater imagery to textual records and simulations. This review presents the first comprehensive synthesis of GAI in aquaculture, covering foundational models (e.g., diffusion models, transformers, and GANs), domain-specific applications, and emerging deployment scenarios. We demonstrate how GAI drives industry innovation in areas such as ROV-based infrastructure inspection, digital twins for farm design, synthetic data generation for fish health diagnostics, multimodal sensor fusion, and personalized advisory systems. Importantly, we map GAI models to specific aquaculture tasks, highlighting their suitability and advantages. We also offer a critical assessment of their operational readiness, including trust, performance, and environmental impact issues. In addition, we provide a systematic classification of applications, case studies, and future directions to guide the responsible and scalable integration of GAI in aquaculture. This review highlights GAI as a powerful tool and a foundational enabler of innovative, resilient, and ecologically aligned aquaculture systems, accelerating the industry’s transition toward more efficient, transparent, and adaptive practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102637"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145107186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Robert Indergård, Simen B. Lysthaug, Eivind Lona, Henning Braaten
{"title":"Exposed vessel operations in aquaculture: Experimental validation of numerical models","authors":"Robert Indergård, Simen B. Lysthaug, Eivind Lona, Henning Braaten","doi":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102617","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.aquaeng.2025.102617","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As more of the aquaculture industry is expected to move production towards exposed waters, accurate numerical models are essential for ensuring safe and efficient operations at sea.</div><div>In this paper, a numerical model of a vessel moored to a fish cage was developed and validated using model test experiments. The tests were conducted in irregular waves, wind, and current, with the vessel positioned in both head sea and beam sea conditions. The same environmental conditions were applied in the numerical analysis. The vessel motions in all degrees of freedom were considered, along with the forces in anchor lines, vessel mooring lines and bridle lines. The numerical model was created using SIMA.</div><div>Various floater ring bending stiffness values were tested in the numerical simulations. The system showed minimal sensitivity to these variations. The numerical model generally over-predicted peak loads and motions due to lack of friction between the vessel and the floating ring. However, it accurately recreated the vessel response and line force response, with mean values and phases matching the model test results. Hence, SIMA can predict motions and forces in typical exposed vessel operation in aquaculture.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":8120,"journal":{"name":"Aquacultural Engineering","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 102617"},"PeriodicalIF":4.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145217588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}